Disaster Planning at Day Care: Centers
To Get New Guidelines for Emergencies

By

Sue Shellenbarger

Updated June 15, 2006 12:01 a.m. ET

It was the New York blackout of 2003 that got Bernice Lake thinking about disaster planning -- for her nanny. With public transit stalled and lights out everywhere, Ms. Lake was daunted by seeing suburban parents unable to get home to their children.

Thus when Ms. Lake, a Manhattan attorney at the time, hired a nanny in 2004 to care for her baby in her Scarsdale, N.Y., home, she laid plans: She and the baby sitter would meet at a nearby elementary school if her home had to be evacuated. And if phone service was disrupted...